Hawaii: The struggle continues
By Dustin Langley
New York
The People's Video Network hosted a Jan. 17
showing of "Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation,"
at the International Action Center here in New York. A lively
discussion about today's ongoing struggles for liberation
followed.
The film describes Hawaii before the arrival of colonialists
in 1778 as a very advanced civilization, with developed
agricultural and fishing techniques. Because the land and
resources were held in common, the people enjoyed great
abundance, having to work only four hours a day to meet their
needs. This left time to create great works of art and to
explore the seas as far as 2,000 miles from home.
All this changed with the arrival of Cap tain Cook and the
European settlers who followed. Tuberculosis and other diseases
wiped out much of the island's population. Missionaries and
other settlers pressured the Hawaiian people into accepting
private ownership of land. Within decades, title to thousands
of acres had fallen into the hands of non-Hawaiians who built
massive sugar plantations.
By the mid-1800s the U.S. government saw Hawaii as key to
control the Pacific. During the reign of Queen Liliuokalani and
her brother, King Kalakau, a group of planters and business
owners seeking to control the kingdom politically and
economically formed an organization called the Committee of
Safety. In 1893, with the help of U.S. Marines, they engineered
a coup.
On July 4, 1894, Sanford Dole, whose family held vast
pineapple and sugar plantations, announced the inauguration of
the Republic of Hawaii and declared himself president. On Aug.
12, 1898, the Republic of Hawaii became the Hawaiian Territory,
with Republic President Sanford Dole appointed as the first
territorial governor.
The struggle continues
More than a hundred years later, the struggle for
sovereignty continues. Jesse Heiwa, a member of the Hawaii
Solidarity Committee and one of the organizers of the Jan. 17
showing, said: "The struggle for Hawaiian sovereignty continues
and it is one that socialists everywhere should support. Those
interested can get updates by sending an email to:
HawaiiSolidarityCommittee-subscribe@yahoogroups.com."
Other information on the struggle for self-determination in
Hawaii can be found at www.hawaii-nation.org.
In discussion after the film showing, viewers noted the
similarities between the takeover of Hawaii and imperialist
conquests of other countries, including Iraq. There too, the
people's rights and wellbeing are subordinated to the drive for
control of natural resources and markets.
The discussion ended on a forward-looking note. One viewer
said, "If the people of Hawaii were able to enjoy such
abundance that they only had to work four hours a day, just
think how much we could do and how rich our lives would be,
with all the advances in technology, if we had an economy that
was also based on common ownership of the land and means of
production."
Reprinted from the Jan. 29, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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